Are there “strange gods” co-existing in our lives? What are we to do with them? BIB 502-2-20-2

Pride and being competitive are major faults with me. Getting an education and having interesting and productive jobs was of prime importance to me. In my early career I worked in the Consumer Produces area. I would often be directly approached by someone in another department wanting to get something done. Often I did an end run around proper channels to do that favor in addition to my assigned work. I took great pride in knowing that I was reliable and would do more than expected. Well, it did get me in trouble a few times.

Later I changed careers drastically and went to work in the aerospace industry. My desire to achieve really got the best of me when I discovered that three of us were developing packaging specifications for the same repair part. I found a computer printout dealing with the spare parts we were working on and this little list grew into a large database of who was doing what. This eliminated the duplication of effort which was so wasteful of our time and taxpayers’ money.

From this one exposure to what computers could do I decided that I needed to learn more. And learn more I certainly did. I worked my way into a niche and was happy for years. I had a special computer that could be either a personal computer or a dumb terminal. I would literally be running through a list of spare parts on the mainframe and working on a report on the PC. Things started going from bad to worse in the aerospace industry and eventually the stress got to me and I took a voluntary layoff.
Meanwhile I had done some work in the real estate area so I tried that for a year or two. Once again computers came very much into play and I organize my own private multiple listing file. I wasn't much of a team player and while I was successful in real estate sales I challenged my broker once too often. The broker was known for “my way or the highway” so it was a highway for me.

By this time I was burnout so I really dropped out. Never one to do anything half way, I bought a house on 20 acres 25 miles from paved roads. The only electricity I had was from solar panels and storage batteries augmented by generators. After two years off the grid I felt closer to God and pretty much healed spiritually. I was ready to get back on the grid and reengaged with life.

In all the years I worked with computers they were not a god to me so much as just being very importance in my life. So what to do with this thing called computers? Just use them to continue to learn and to work to bring more into the kingdom while there is still time.